October 2009 archive

McChrystal Flown to Denmark To Discuss War With Obama



By Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, October 3, 2009

A brief meeting between President Obama and his top general in Afghanistan on Friday offered the commander in chief an opportunity to question directly the dire assessment of the war effort there, officials said.

The previously unannounced meeting between Obama and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal took place aboard Air Force One after it landed in Copenhagen Friday morning. McChrystal, who had been in London for a speech, was whisked to Denmark at Obama’s request, White House aides said.

French general planned 18th-century invasion of Britain using American force

From The Times

October 3, 2009

Valentine Low

From Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler, the invasion of Britain has been a constant theme in the history of these islands, even if the successful attempts have been heavily outnumbered by the unsuccessful ones.

Until now, however, one plan has remained unknown: an 18th-century plot to invade with an American army during that country’s War of Independence.

Drawn up by a French general, the scheme was to bring over an American force of 10,000 that would find a Britain so distracted by the war on the other side of the Atlantic, that victory would seem certain. Just to make sure, however, the general suggested that the force include a corps of Native Americans, or “sauvages”, as he termed them, who would strike such fear in British troops that any resistance would collapse immediately.

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    O.K., there’s a confluence of a few things here.  First of all, it’s been a while, so I hope that y’all will be all “Prodigal Son” about me and such.  My fingers are crossed on that.  Second, many of you know, some of you don’t, Mu = BenGoshi (over at Orange) and BenGoshi = Mu (here).  Nothing scandalous.  Just when I signed up here a year and a half ago I wanted a sort of “clean slate” with my writings and opinions.  I still do.  So that’s “self-outing” No. 1.  Third, yesterday I put up a diary on Orange (which is pretty much re-done below for y’all, but this D’Dharma one’s better.  Really.) wherein I gave out an email address, but told all readers that I didn’t want to provide or link directly to personal information, as I wanted to keep some semblance of anonymity.  Well, some nimrod thought it’d be cute to google me up and post that info in the diary thread.  Eventually I think that Meteor Blades wiped all that, but I can still view the hidden threads so I’m not really sure.  Anyway, that’s all to say that I was “outed” on Orange yesterday, but am really, really sure no one here would do that, for which I thank you in advance.  

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    Now for the fun stuff (again, many of you who do Orange saw this yesterday.  Consider it a “cross post” . . . with some minor updates).

     I’ve put together two (2) small group trips for Japan, for this coming spring and I’m inviting anyone interested in going to contact me via:   [email protected]

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     ^{Priests at Kurodani Temple, just after morning Sutras.  Kyoto.  2007.}

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     ^{Yasaka Pagoda.  Kyoto.  2008}

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 Please follow me below the fold and, note:  all photos are mine.

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McChrystal Flown to Denmark To Discuss War With Obama



By Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, October 3, 2009

A brief meeting between President Obama and his top general in Afghanistan on Friday offered the commander in chief an opportunity to question directly the dire assessment of the war effort there, officials said.

The previously unannounced meeting between Obama and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal took place aboard Air Force One after it landed in Copenhagen Friday morning. McChrystal, who had been in London for a speech, was whisked to Denmark at Obama’s request, White House aides said.

French general planned 18th-century invasion of Britain using American force

From The Times

October 3, 2009

Valentine Low

From Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler, the invasion of Britain has been a constant theme in the history of these islands, even if the successful attempts have been heavily outnumbered by the unsuccessful ones.

Until now, however, one plan has remained unknown: an 18th-century plot to invade with an American army during that country’s War of Independence.

Drawn up by a French general, the scheme was to bring over an American force of 10,000 that would find a Britain so distracted by the war on the other side of the Atlantic, that victory would seem certain. Just to make sure, however, the general suggested that the force include a corps of Native Americans, or “sauvages”, as he termed them, who would strike such fear in British troops that any resistance would collapse immediately.

Open Thread

A while back I wrote an essay here titled Angry about the “Lockerbie bomber” getting released? because, well, the media was able to ramp up quite a spectacle of anger and indignation regarding the dying man who was convicted of the attack being released.  

The whole case has been fishy from the very beginning, and now?   Well, flying well under the radar of the so-called “media” in this country (after all, a juicy blackmail story involving a celebrity is far more important than anything else in the world) are new revelations that key witnesses in Megrahi’s conviction were paid just a TON of money for their testimony.

Once again, it’s the UK media, and not the American, that actually manages to cover this:

Two key figures in the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber were secretly given rewards of up to $3m (£1.9m) in a deal discussed by Scottish detectives and the US government, according to legal papers released today.

The claims about the payments were revealed in a dossier of evidence that was intended to be used in an appeal by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of murdering 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988.

Megrahi abandoned his appeal last month after the Libyan and Scottish governments struck a deal to free him on compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with prostate cancer. Now in hospital in Tripoli, Megrahi said he wanted the public to see the evidence which he claims would have cleared him.

“I continue to protest my innocence – how could I fail to do so?,” he said. “I have no desire to add to the upset of many people I know are profoundly affected by what happened in Lockerbie. My intention is only for the truth to be made known.”

The documents published online by Megrahi’s lawyers today show that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) was asked to pay $2m to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who gave crucial evidence at the trial suggesting that Megrahi had bought clothes later used in the suitcase that allegedly held the Lockerbie bomb.

The DoJ was also asked to pay a further $1m to his brother, Paul Gauci, who did not give evidence but played a major role in identifying the clothing and in “maintaining the resolve of his brother”. The DoJ said their rewards could be increased and that the brothers were also eligible for the US witness protection programme, according to the documents.

The previously secret payments were uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which returned Megrahi’s conviction to the court of appeal in 2007 as a suspected miscarriage of justice. Many references were in private diaries kept by the detectives involved, Megrahi’s lawyers said, but not their official notebooks.

So the money came from the United States.  Gee, what a surprise.

After spending six years in law enforcement myself, the state of our current law enforcement is even more appalling to me.  But, after seeing how law enforcement was trending in its attitudes, I was prepared for this — being threatened with arrest because I deigned to make a complaint.

The story?

BAD IDEA

A traveling exhibition of cartoons from Japan depicting “the horrors of war” made a stop at the Nanking Massacre Memorial Hall in China.

It was a hard day’s night for some Tokyo record store workers: to accommodate brisk sales of all 14 digitally remastered Beatles albums, some shops opened at midnight.

Two doctors in Nara, including one who had previously been arrested for defrauding the national health insurance system, performed unnecessary surgery on a patient’s liver, resulting in the man’s death.

Lee Myung Bak, the president of South Korea, said he hoped Emperor Akihito would visit his country next year to mark the 100th anniversary of Japan’s annexation of the Korean Peninsula.

It was reported that then-US President Gerald Ford was pondering a trip to Hiroshima in 1974, but the plans were scrapped for fear of ruffling feathers in Japan. No sitting American president has ever visited either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.